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This is my list for Lone Wolf this year, which I have perfected over a year of tweaking. It is not a wild or crazy list, but I have not lost with it so far. I have faced all sorts of Dark Elves, Lizardmen and Warriors of Chaos, as well as Ogres and new TK.

Grey Seer, Screaming Bell, Power Scroll

Plague Priest, Plague Furnace, flail, Dispel Scroll, Dragonbane Gem, IronCurse Icon, lvl 2

Chieftain, BSB, Storm Banner

61x Slaves, Musi
60x Slaves, Musi
60x Slaves, Musi
60x Slaves, Musi

31x Clanrats, Musi, Std

25x Plague Monks, Musi, Std Plague Banner

5x Gutter Runners, Poison, Slings

2xHellpits, one with warpstone spikes
1xWarp Lightning Cannon

5xGiant Rats, 1x Packmaster
5xGiant Rats, 1x Packmaster
5xGiant Rats, 1x Packmaster

2499


The only weakness the lists has is terrain (forest/river spam or canny building placement) and scenarios that involve deploying all at once.

When I can alternate deploy, I put down giant rats, then gutters if no warmachine, then cannon, before I commit any blocks to the field. Then

slaves typically deploy in center, with the bell unit sandwiched in the middle, hanging a little behind so it does not get charged, but still in

range for magic/leadership. Hammer units go to the flank, double abom one side and furnace to the other.



Double sTank is an obvious problem/counter, but dwarves/empire have typically be only modest threats with so many targets on the field.

Gutters clear out empire artillery lines whilst dwarves are tougher, but easily controlled by redirects and slaves. I can usually get at least

one, if not two hammers to hit them and then I roll into their backlines. Magic is random, as usual, but I don't rely on it to win me anything.

Combat, flanking, holding and redirects win me almost all my games without magic or shooting. The cannon is in there to prevent

characters from getting too cocky, and puts hurt down on ogre armies. Blood and glory is a problem, because if my general pops, I lose.

Meeting engagement can be a little tricky, because they can deploy away from my slaves/attack my hammers. That is, if they

understand how my army works and if I have to go first. If they don't and deploy centrally, I have a field day.


TLDR; If you think you can beat this list, please post how and with what list.

Here are the obvious ones:

6 dice Pandemonium+ 2 Hellcannon every turn
Deathmask (Tomb Kings)
2 Steamtank

Also, my army is pirate themed, yarr!

Great Unclean One with Plague wind might prove a challenging opponent.

High elves.
Lv.4 life
Lv.2 life
(for auto dwellers, or #4 with silver wand, and #2 with high magic)
BSB with banner of sorcery (+d6 PD)
spear elves
spear elves
(min core)
As many white lions as can be fit into the list split into 2 units, one with banner of eternal flame.
eagle x2

All the HE player has to do is sit back and dwellers your force a few turns to win really. You don’t have any ranged standoff that would make the HE player close in with you.
With your bell unit only being 31 strong, one dwellers will cripple the unit.
Your tactics mention a furnace, but it's not listed with your plague priest. If you do have the furnace with only 25 plague monks, it's the same thing; dwellers FTW.
Eagles’ hunt the 1 WLC, and you only have one unit of gutters to stop them with. Eagles will eat the G.rats. You could cast at them, but then you’re basically wasting PD at that point by not casting at the white lions, which are the real threat to your army.
The white lions can grind through the slaves with surprising quickness, and can put the hurt on the HPA's or the bell/furnace.

Just FYI, the HE list is not tailored, I faced basically that list last year at lone wolf, so expect to see similar.

If your BSB ever sees combat he will be killed with the quickness since he has only a 5+ AS. Same with your plague priest; he only has a 2++ vs. flaming, and nothing else.
Your bell block is really small, and not very killy. If anything gets to it, they very well could grind through the clanrats in a hurry.
If you really feel the grey seer needs to live, give him skalm.

If the lone wolf runs the same scenarios they did last year then the 6 flags mission will see you hosed, as you will be forced to give flags to the slaves, and they will be picked apart, and your flags taken.
Lone ranger will cost you a gutter runner, dropping you down to 4 guys. Still a good unit, but you only need to lose one to panic at that point.
In Texas 2 step, your opponent will just flip all of your slaves around, out of BSB/GEN range, and plow them.

Are you playing for Best General? Your Comp score is going to be horrible with that list.

Not that your above list is bad, just some things to think about when you are practicing for the lone wolf scenarios.
Good luck man, I wish I could've made it this year!

There are all sorts of ways to beat this army as your damage output isn't actually that high, although getting more than a minor win is very tough. The reason being that you have a few obvious places for a large number of armies to get a reasonable number of points. The Hellpits die to shooting (war machines mostly, but poison could do it if you drop its regen), magic or anything with high I flaming attacks and most people would back themselves to get the points for the Giant Rats, Gutters and maybe a couple of Slave blocks (which isn't much but it adds up). If I was playing you the general plan would be to grab as many points as possible early on before getting completely bogged down by Slaves. If I can kill the Hellpits and limit the effectiveness of the Seer (I normally run Cube + Becalming which is about as good as any non Dwarf army is going to get) then your ability to get points back off me is not that great. Slaves can tie me up from the front from turn 3 onwards but if the Hellpits are down you just have 1 block of Plague Monks (which I'll back an elite combat unit to beat) and the Bell unit (which I'll even back a core combat unit to beat as long as there is a character in it which can chop through the Bell itself) which you can use to actually break units and get points.

Clearly the easiest way to shut this list down is to neutralise the Grey Seer and/or BSB, as then even the Steadfast Slaves aren't going to stick around. Your biggest enemy in this regard is probably yourself via miscasts, but their are a number of things which can get your characters inside blocks or stuff like Pandemonium which neutralise him without killing him.

I think you are seriously overrating your ability to deal with war machines though, you only have a single unit of Gutters which is fairly easy for a decent player to counter by screening his big guns. You certainly aren't going to run through 3 Cannons and 3 Mortars with 5 Poisoned Slings. The Storm Banner buys you some time, but a well played gunline will ignore the Slaves and blast the Hellpits, Bell and Cannon off the board.

Basically I think this list is leaning on the Hellpits and even more so on the Seer, if someone can shut 2 out of 3 of those things down then they have a decent shot at beating this list.

On the High Elf List-

I do not care about dweller's below. Dwellers on slaves is fine. I only need one slave unit to slow down/lock down the elite flaming unit. Dwellers on plague monks is fine too, as long as the furnace doesn't eat it on a 6. I run them deep, and rely on the charge+built in ranks to break units. Magic is two way street as well, and not in your favor. Plague, Scorch and 13th are all extremely effective vs HE, almost absurdly so. 3 dice on bell for possible free scorch, then scorch again, eat one warpstone and 2-3 dice a plague or power-scrolled 13th. Each turn, every turn. In addition, the army is fast enough to make it into combat by turn 3. With my false deploys, the hellpits are on the reverse side of the flaming banner and just waltz around. I am worried about a 60 man spear unit, but it only takes one spell or good WLC shot to manage. It will be bloody, but my corpses are worth much less.

On the eagles, keep in mind the giant rats run in front of the slave blocks. If the eagles charge, they win, but slaves just charge and overun through passive combat res. It may slow me down a bit, but not too much. Also keep in mind I have storm banner, and will use it to deny flying movement on 1st or second turn as needed.

@Powerguy-

I get what you mean. When you first look, it is just a typical list. However, since I get to see most, if not all the opponent's drops before I put down my hammers, they are uniquely positioned to do HUGE damage potential. You are right on the Grey seer being his own worst enemy. It is not unusual for me to skip my own magic phase to prevent miscasts, if there is nothing game changing to cast. Keep in mind, the Bell unit NEVER goes into combat. Ever. The BSB is in the second rank of the bell unit, which is run 5 wide like my plague monks, so he does not need armor. The clanrats function only to body block for the bell, and to push it into range. Often opponents can shut down some of my threats, but with appropriate damage control I don't lose out too much.

On the gutters, I do not use them to shoot much. They are primarily an assaulting unit, especially versus empire or orcs&goblins. It may take until turn 3 or even 4 to connect to the war machines with proper screening. They charge and pummel the crew, if not outright kill them, and overrun to the next one. It takes a while, but I get all the points they spent on warmachines. Dwarven warmachines are problematic, but even 3-4 squads of gutters have trouble shooting them down, so I only bring 1 to clean up easy targets, or at least tie up the flaming cannon so it doesn't pop something turn 4-6.

Try running this army up the board against a 3 cannon empire list, or 1-2 fire cannon dwarf list. If I am able to go first, they have 2 rounds of shooting before I am upon them, if they go first, then 3 rounds. The first is under storm banner, if I'm lucky even the second turn. 4+ to shoot first turn, misfires, rolling 1 to wound and low d6 wound results versus 6 wound beasties all add up. If even one of these hammers connects with most shooting army units, they should punch through.

True gunlines (100 handgunners etc) will have a lot fo trouble due to my speed and the warpstorm spell (-1 to shoot to non skaven weapons) in addition to the banner.

But how does this list vary from every other decent skaven list? It uses exactly the same tricks and tools to win the game. To me it feels that you have re-invented the wheel.

Its not a huge surprise that most of europe comps slaves to max 40, yes they are very good! yes, hellpits are very good...

Still, a bit of luck from a demon player resolving plague wind twice during first 3 turns and it should be pretty ugly for any skaven player.

I guess the only real trick is here is three units of giant rats, and solid deployment methods. I don't see enough appreciation for how powerful false deploy/redirecting is. Otherwise, same old skaven tricks, hellpit/furnace/bell blah blah blah.
I am also aware that my comp score is going to suck. It is going to suck a lot. But I wanted to see if anyone has had luck in beating lists like these in their own games, and how/why. I apologize if I sound like a punk. =D

2 aboms are pretty nice but also offer up double the risk, and I personally would never take them in a 2500pt.

You have barely any clanrats and your plague monks should at least be 30-40, at 2500pts preferably closer to 40 if you plan to use them to wreck things.

What I see in that list mostly is an ogre kingdoms style team featuring multiple high wound high str/t models as possible using slaves as tarpits so you can run about flanking with ogres while your aboms draw fire? The only issue I see is you likely being shredded with ranged, rat ogres have no armor and if you take out the packmaster they wind up suffering stupidity.

How I would deal with that army. My 2000pt army has 6-7 templates in and a grey seer that uses plague. Your slaves would be nul and void pretty quickly - As well keep in mind with plague or the dreaded 13th ill also make a mess of your slaves should I get it off. - Equally the slaves would end up tarpit'ing each other while I would more then likely aim for pitting some ogres or the abom's

As for your two abom's that would be the trickiest thing to deal with I'd likely have to rely on soaking them as well if I can whilst warp lightning spam and cannon fire on it while its in combat. OR alturnatively soak it in warpfire thrower removing its regenerate and hope I roll high on the d6 wound multiplier. But thats just with a 2000pt list, with an additional 500 points to spend I would likely have more clanrats, a bell of my own and more flame template weaponry with a full 40unit of stormvermin.


My 2k list

@Sasa0mg- What risk? With the slaves holding them in place, my aboms just ride up in style with plenty of time to swoop in to a flank or rear charge. Thats the whole point of slaving this hard, to allow time to even out the random factor inherent to their movement.

Also, skaven mirror match is all about plague and who has a screaming bell. Its bloody, slow and weird. The furnae will actually be your big issue in a mirror, as it can do massive damage to infantry and also go deep for rank breaking. With only 25 plague monks and a furnace, I will have 8 ranks total, as the furnace takes up 15 slots. Apparently I forgot to include the furnace on my roster, I will change that momentarily.

Slaves will hold them in place at the risk of lives is the risk, uninportant disposable lives but they are all you have as beyond rat ogres, aboms and that one unit of plague monks, a stripped unit of clanrats and slaves are all your fielding.

The difficulty with your ogres idea is that they have no armor, and your putting them out front of your army?

Granted my first cannon targets will be the bell and furnace, not so much to kill the bell as to cause a catastrophic forced bell ring though granted the furnace will be a problem. But unlike my force yours being extremely melee heavy will be prone to redirection issues as well.

Theres really no way of knowing how exactly our fight will go, although I have seen an army like yours being fielded before. I only think that my weapons teams and templates would be enough match to bring down your ogres and provide me an advantage to the fact you have absolutely none beyond magic.

What ogres? I only have giant rat packs.

*stare*
Wow I totally miss-read that.

Never-mind then I suppose. your list now confuses me xD

Skaven have always been able to out-deploy everyone, so im still hanging on to my wheel argument OFC the local metagame affects everyones views.

But since I want to play along, I am still hoping to get your view on my Great Unclean One forcing plague wind (and to a lesser degree, being steed of shadowed)

It's a bog-standard Skaven list, so of course it'll do well.

I've had good success with my Lizards against Skaven lists that are almost identical, bout 3/5. 4 salamanders 2 blocks of saurus and enough skinks to deal with 1 hellpit while the slann takes care of the other. Of course it doesn't always work, but I just need one turn of salamander shooting to bring those slave blocks down to size, break them in a turn then I can get to the stuff that gets me points. And once I'm within 24" of the grey seer I don't worry about your magic or the scroll.

Of course it isn't fool proof, nothing is but it's worked for me.

Sorry was out all day. Just beat a lizardmen list exactly as moseefus described. Stormbanner+giant rats and gutters clean up the enemy skirmishers and the proceed as normal. With proper manuevering, the bell unit is easily able to stay exactly at 24" from the temple but 1" away from the Slaan, so I never get becalmed. I nearly lost because it was my practice partner whom ive played against for 7 years, but 13th spam got the temple guard on the last turn. The only reason it was so close is because he placed forests and buildings in good spots and then sat in them. I misplayed some as well, but Im confident that I can overcome that next game.

@Makeh- Guo with plague wind would hurt. Without powerdice generators though, its not *too* painful. Daemons as a whole are a reasonably easy army to overcome though. Similiar to high elves or chaos, they typically have 2-3 elite blocks and a big monster. T3 on bloodletters lets me put real hurt on them with slaves, the squish them down by turn 4-5. With few tricks and weak redirect options, i have nearly full control of the board. The game would look deadly, but without smart manuevering on the daemon players part, i can glide to a typical skaven victory (100+ slaves dead, smattering of wounds on my monsters).

Sorry if this is messy, im posting from my phone.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, funny thing about plague wind on slaves- who has 10 extra nurgling bases on hand? Not too many I suppose!

Also, funny thing about plague wind on slaves- who has 10 extra nurgling bases on hand? Not too many I suppose!

Haha, less funny for me Trying to figure out if the 20 im building is enough or not And most games I play are comped to a maximun unit-size of 40

Edit: If I was playing the game my game plan would revolve around my big unit of fiends and GUO, rest are just food for 13... I guess the biggest hope would be that my nurglings engage your bell on turn 2 and 3 and start grinding, but ofc theres a lot of if's. I think skaven are a powerful army

I wouldn't mind facing it with WoC, You out deploy me by 3 :(, but I play a high M army, so I feel the matchups would be favorable, based on higher move being able to dictate engagement (overwhelm your heavy hitters before your slaves can charge). Without someone rolling the flanks the army is banking on skaven Magic/trickery... Which I'll take my chances with.

Also how much terrain do you usually play with? It seems that some forrests/impassible would play havok to your wall of slaves strat

@Kiwidru- could you post your WoC list?

We play with the random terrain generator+scenario. 1d6+4 pieces from the chart, and then we alternate placement of terrain, roll for table sides.

can you explain the rat dart unit's purpose (other than redirecting)? I've only played skaven once and haven't finalized a list yet.

cricketofdeth wrote:High elves.
Lv.4 life
Lv.2 life
(for auto dwellers, or #4 with silver wand, and #2 with high magic)
BSB with banner of sorcery (+d6 PD)
spear elves
spear elves
(min core)
As many white lions as can be fit into the list split into 2 units, one with banner of eternal flame.
eagle x2

? What is the difference between WL and PG or SM against lots of gakky slaves? Wouldn't SM be better? Hitting on 2's wounding on 2's with twice the attacks?

We might get to find out how I fare against this without any of the theory hammer! I'll be rolling up to Lonewolf too. Where are you coming in from? I'm rolling up from Austin.

Double Hellpit and powerscroll thirteenth are going to make me cry for sure, particularly with the storm banner to poop on my shooting phase.

I don't remember Lonewolf actually factoring in a comp score for final placing. You might get paired against other *hard* lists for the first two rounds, but other than that, don't think it affects your placing.

Nope. Can't beat it with my army.
Next?

@Bronzejoe: White lions have a better save against shooting, are stubborn, and str 6.
Meaning VS. this list they can horde all the want to, as ranks don't matter, to chew through all the slaves faster. If they even get caught up by them. Also with str 6 they're a high threat to the bell.
Plus I saw a list almost like that at lone wolf last year.

You could take whatever combat HE unit you wanted to though, but the stubborn for the white lions really helps them out with their small number of models.
How are sword masters hitting on 2's?

@Bronzejon- White Lions would better for two reasons- Stubborn keeps them fighting to the last man, instead of the typical one flank from an Abom/Furnace and slaves in front breaking them. Second, the cloaks helps them survive scorch spam, which is a major HE killer. However, without the 2 attacks, once the elite unit drops below 20ish the damage falls off too fast.

@Buckero0- The rat darts are there for false deployment, which means I deploy them first up front so I see where my opponent deploys (Only in alternating deploy scenarios). They also redirect and/or run at war machines, other redirectors.

@Red_Zeke- I'm coming from the Dallas area. Big fan of your battle reports, look forward to seeing you at Lone Wolf.

I'd like to give it a go with ogres.
Lvl 4 Slaughter with warrior bane, 4+ ward and hell heart
Lvl 2 fire belly with great weapon
BSB with dragon helm, iron fist, heavy armor, sword of striking and ruby ring
8 Ironguts, full command, flaming banner
8 Ironguts, full command
11 Ogres, full command, Iron Fists
6 units of 10 gnoblars!
2x Iron Blasters
2x Sabertusks
1 Gourger

My first 8 deployments are only worth a combined total of 192 points. That out crap deploys any other army.
Firebelly leads non-flaming iron guts, butchers leads the flaming ones, and BSB leads the bulls (3 wide, 4 deep). 2 units with flaming, + 3 flaming spells is my adjustment since the latest VC book, and I've been happy to have it.

Since you don't cause terror tests with compulsory moves, 25 point gnoblar blocks really mess up aboms in a very cost effective manner.

Slaves are good, but ogres do out grind them.
Poison slings have a much harder time against a W5 chariot with a 4+ save then against the typical W3 warmachines with no save. Could box out those bastards with a few units of gnoblars if I wanted to. 3 units makes a ~2 foot no sneak zone.


-Matt

I am pretty sure Dark Elves could beat this list. They overpower you from range and usually have an unkillable Dreadlord to hold up your Screaming Bell unit. Now moving the Slaves up isn't an option as you will move out of Inspring Presence range (making breaking your Slaves an easy task, especially for units like Corsairs and Witch Elves with a massive amount of attacks). However, standing back isn't an option either as the Dark Elves will destroy you in the ranged game.

@Hawaiimatt- Yes you would completely out deploy me. I would use my gutter runners and giant rats as aggressive gnoblar destroyers. The furnace does cause terror on charge, so they could sweep some off quickly. The aboms would be slowed by the gnoblars, which could take a few turns to grind.

But between the slaves and my slightly superior trash units, I could clear the way for at least one charge, hopefully securing a small victory. The small size of the blocks with no stubborn crown makes me confident I can lock up and grind away with no worries.

@Airmaniac- Overpower me from range? They have, at most, 40 repeater xbows and maybe (MAYBE) a bolt thrower.
Their magic is typically shadow, which is weaker out of combat (majority buff/debuff). Dreadlord can not easily "hold" the bell. If he approaches front, I storm banner when he is close. Bell is deployed 4-5" back, and if the Lord gets closer, about 14" to the giant rats or 12" from the slaves,it becomes impossible to bypass them without flying.

If he approaches from the back, I should have 3 turns of movement before he connects, which still gives me sufficient range/play to work. I only worry triple charges and beefed up Cold One Knights. Witches are a joke for me, scorch and plague annihilate them in droves. The piles of attacks are typically not enough to break the unit in less than 3 rounds, which gives me plenty of time to crash into a flank/rear with the hammers.

I close against dark elves because of their superior maneuverability. If I do not press the attack, they will pick off one unit, then run away until turn 6. So I just overwhelm them with numbers and hold them until my hammer can connect.

Hello again! I still think you will do well: your list has no major flaws and you seem competent enough to press your advantages. My, belated list is:
L: Sorcerer Lord (Heavens): Level 4, Enchanted Shield, Spell Familiar, Ironcurse Icon
H: Exaulted: BSB, MoT, Charmed Shield, Dawnstone, Potion of Strength
C: 18 Warriors: MoT, Full Command, Shields, Raptuous Standard
C: 18 Warriors: MoT, Full Command, Ahw, Flaming Banner
C: 5 Warhounds
C: 5 Warhounds
S: 3 Dragon Ogres: Ahw
S: 5 Knights: MoT
S: 5 Knights: MoK
S: 6 Ogres: MoT, Great Weapons
R: Shaggoth: Ahw

When/How Much is LoneWolf? I'd love to find out in person!

Last I saw from Bowman, there's 5 unpaid slots remaining. Dates are 10-12 Feb.

Details here: http://lonewolfgt.com/

It should be noted in the past that I've described Kiwidru's list as "friendly". I still think that mostly true, but deceptive. There's a lot of different things going on. Harmonic Convergence on Chaos Knights is sweetness against S4 or less. He's also played it quite a bit around here, and is getting good results- beating GT lists regularly, including Geist, who grabbed 3rd overall last year.